tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post8569454895205533575..comments2024-02-19T04:50:58.170-08:00Comments on Shuck and Jive: Religion without RevelationJohn Shuckhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00798753206614838161noreply@blogger.comBlogger63125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-8025165090450010482009-06-03T07:09:57.834-07:002009-06-03T07:09:57.834-07:00"My objection is to those who wish to short-c..."My objection is to those who wish to short-circuit discernment by appealing to a final authority."<br /><br />Here, too, I think you make an important point.<br /><br />Look, I love the Tao Te Ching, think there is great and profound truth in it, have much studied it...but I am not a Taoist. I have not, so to speak, given myself to it.<br /><br />There is a difference between religion and appreciation. I think it has to do with going beyond oneself. And that raises the difficult question of authority. <br /><br />Both God and the Church, to put it bluntly, are not myself. (Unless God is just my projection and I am a member of a church of one.) To me, their value is very much in their standing outside of myself, in their providing a check to my selfishness, waywardness, rationalizations. <br /><br />Of course, I could still ignore them, did they not have that quality called authority, that thing which gives them some claim to my attention. It is not easy. "All authority in heaven and earth is given to me," says Jesus. Why God didn't give it to me, I'll never know, but he didn't.rick allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07612435616018593956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-15180408964606097132009-06-02T18:21:44.408-07:002009-06-02T18:21:44.408-07:00Pete,
Welcome and good point regarding the role o...Pete,<br /><br />Welcome and good point regarding the role of the church.John Shuckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00798753206614838161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-36131127201055594932009-06-02T14:21:28.877-07:002009-06-02T14:21:28.877-07:00I enjoyed your post on religion without revelation...I enjoyed your post on religion without revelation. We are learning despite Barth that religion is a human activity. We humans have feelings and experiences that we name religious. We are often passionately convinced of the truth of our religion because our feelings about it are so strong. Such strong feelings must make right, yes? However, feelings are unreliable. They are fleeting; they are often gone before we can bring them fully to consciousness; they change; we can’t reproduce them at will. So we try to find a way to hold on to them, to preserve them. We are much like Peter in the story of the Transfiguration wanting to build booths to preserve the moment. Our booths are the institution, the doctrines, and the supernatural. These are all designed to hold on to and reproduce the feelings at the core of all religions. However, as Jesus pointed out to him, we must move on, even to death. Life and its feelings can’t be stored but must always be poured out until we too pass away.<br />So, far from there being no revelation, our religious feelings give us a sense of the Spirit moving in us. They are our revelation. Some feelings can lead us to “Delight in the law of the Lord” and “Conform our lives to his.” Of course, these feelings are sometimes there, sometimes not and they can be overwhelmed by other more self-serving feelings. Regular worship can on occasion summon forth those feelings that, it is hoped, are more in keeping with a God of love, and we can leave worship remembering these feelings with the aim of acting upon them.<br />In “Radicals and the Future of the Church” (1989), Don Cupitt still thought that the church was needed because “It is a theatre in which we solemnly enact our deepest feelings.” With the publication of “The Meaning of the West” in 2008, he announced that he has left the church, because, in the West, Christianity lives on most vitally in secular society, while the churches have become weak or irrational. Although I agree this assessment, I think that it is possible to imagine churches that can be useful to people. Most importantly, churches must embrace their role as vehicles for managing feelings. <br />I write more about this in my post of March 17, 2009, “The Church of the Afterlife,” on my blog, “Worshipping at the Church of Non-Realism,” (http://churchofnon-realism.blogspot.com). I would appreciate your commentsPete Mhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17003978838276701270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-20095101938914508662009-06-02T14:05:20.336-07:002009-06-02T14:05:20.336-07:00The point isn’t which of these sets of metaphors a...The point isn’t which of these sets of metaphors and practices one adopts, the point is the openness that results. Unfortunately, adherents to just about every one of them – because they are flawed human beings – too often miss the point and get stuck on the externals. This is why we have holy wars and terrorism and people murdering other people in cold blood over ideological differences. <br /><br />I suspect you’ll argue that my statement proves your point – after all the message of wisdom and compassion and intimacy with the Absolute had to come from somewhere, right? Yes and no … I believe those ideals come from God, yes, but not because God “revealed” them. I believe people who were open to God’s presence – people like Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, Ghandi, Lao Tzu, Tolstoy, Martin Luther King, Julian of Norwich, Martin Luther, etc. – were able to tap into God’s wisdom inside themselves and share it with us. Whether or not they had it completely right, and whether or not their cultural worldviews and personal foibles distorted some of it, is beside the point. The point is, there is a very rich place where they overlap, and that place is the yardstick by which we can judge not only other ideologies, but also details within their own ideologies. So, does the massacre of the Canaanites in the Book of Joshua, for instance, jibe with a message of intimacy, selflessness, and compassion? Hmm … not in my book. Mein Kampf? Certainly not. Nietzsche’s Ubermensch? Not really, though it has its moments. What about Sartre’s idea that the morality of an action should be judged based on what would happen if everyone in the world took that action? Well, it’s not perfect, but it does provide a good starting point for reflecting on what a life of compassion might look like. <br /><br />Why call oneself a Christian, then? Because the person in question finds that Jesus’ teachings resonate more for him or her than the teachings of Buddha or Mohammed. Because Christian symbolism and metaphor permeate our culture and, therefore, the version of Divinity that one’s spirit craves communion with resembles the Christian version. Because it’s a valid way to encounter the Divine, and probably the most accessible for most of us.jmcleod76https://www.blogger.com/profile/17756115118582961551noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-4335450350013209452009-06-02T14:05:14.440-07:002009-06-02T14:05:14.440-07:00@ Rick
Denying that any one faith tradition’s sacr...@ Rick<br />Denying that any one faith tradition’s sacred writings are specifically “revelation” in the sense of being God’s actual, undiluted message is not the same thing as affirming that all worldviews are equally valid. <br /><br />Yes, all of the great religions of the world say different, albeit similar, things. The thing is, it’s only in the details where they really differ. All of the major religions of the world – and many of the minor ones – have the same basic message. That message is that there is something bigger than each of us – or even the sum total of all of us – that we are all a part of. That “something” imbues each of us with the capacity for both wisdom and compassion, and for intimacy with one another and with itself. However, we often fail to perceive that intimacy and therefore succumb to the desire to increase our own material happiness at the expense of others (greed), and to cause physical or emotional violence to those we dislike (hatred). Once we do those things, our intimacy with one another and with the “something” – God, the Absolute, the Ground of all Being, our Buddha nature, whatever you want to call it – is shattered. We are living East of Eden, we are asleep, we are trapped in the grave, etc. Religion offers us a way to renew that intimacy by “dying” to our habitual ways of thinking – being crucified and resurrected with Christ, experiencing the dissolution of the conditioned Self and “waking up,” rising up from slavery and wandering in the desert to enter the Promised Land, etc. Religions, because they come from different cultures, differ on the metaphors they use for this process, and they differ on the requirements and the specific moral and ritual obligations for adherents, but all point to the need for compassion, selflessness, moderation, and a life spent open to the presence of the divine, through prayer, meditation, communal ceremonies, etc.jmcleod76https://www.blogger.com/profile/17756115118582961551noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-25626091764074657642009-06-02T13:29:53.868-07:002009-06-02T13:29:53.868-07:00"Herein, I suppose, is the crux of the disagreemen..."Herein, I suppose, is the crux of the disagreement, the willingness or unwillingness to attach meaning to “closeness to God” or to exercise judgment regarding truth or obligation."<br /><br />I am all for being willing to exercise judgment regarding truth or obligation. Together, maybe we can work toward both truth and obligation. <br /><br />My objection is to those who wish to short-circuit discernment by appealing to a final authority.John Shuckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00798753206614838161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-28763350707251287282009-06-02T13:11:35.729-07:002009-06-02T13:11:35.729-07:00I think you're right JM that "there is a position ...I think you're right JM that "there is a position in the middle of religious fundamentalism on one hand and modernist secular fundamentalism on the other" as there definitely is a balance between the two extremes. The problem is where our faith is centered---whether it is centered on manmade inkblots or the One whom those manmade inkblots point to. I believe this is how idolatry comes about---people often confuse the means or vehicle of communicating God's self-revelation with God's self-revelation itself. For instance, the bible is just the record of humanity's interactions with God's self-revelation itself as fully revealed in Christ but the bible is not God's revelation itself---it can only point us to God's self-revelation in Christ. In the same way, nature tells us something about God's self-revelation but is not that revelation itself. When we mistake these things, we begin to believe the bible and nature are God. <br /><br />I also like how you said "I think taking it literally actually strips away the material's viability to speak to us in a changing world"---exactly. This is why Borg is right on the money with his approach to scripture.TheoPoethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17169016780168243136noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-75596087701954634752009-06-02T13:08:34.798-07:002009-06-02T13:08:34.798-07:00"What I do not understand is how one can deny any ..."What I do not understand is how one can deny any validity to Christian claims and still claim to have any relationship to Christianity--unless religion really is just a matter of arbitrary “taste,” and one’s religion has as much relationship to truth as one’s choice of a sports team to root for."<br /><br />Marcus Borg came close to saying something like that in one of his books, where he compared loyalty to one's faith with loyalty to one's wife. <br /><br />I would argue, however, that it isn't a simply binary proposition of accepting Christianity or rejecting it. This is the fundamentalist outlook, but religion is more complicated than that. One can be drawn to the traditions and practices of a faith without accepting all the claims that are asserted by that faith; and furthermore, in the case of Christianity anyway, its faith traditions (going back to the very beginning) showed considerable diversity in which a variety of propositions have been held concerning the nature of the faith. There is not a rigid and impenetrable border wall that defines the boundary between Christianness and non-Christianness; I would suggest that the boundary is fundamentally a fuzzy zone that cannot be so clearly defined. And if you accept John Hick's position on religious pluralism, then committing yourself to a given faith tradition doesn't simply means that you have chosen a means of mediating your relationship to the ultimate, that the "truth claims" are simply a means of participating in this mediating process, and that by no means means that other religions are excluded from their own ways of mediating one's relationship with the Ultimate. Borg believes that in order to do this you should not dabble in superficial syncretism, but rather commit yourself fully to the faith tradition of your choice or inclination. (That last part is easier said than done in my case, I might add.)Mystical Seekerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-22867400359791627492009-06-02T12:51:51.446-07:002009-06-02T12:51:51.446-07:00“Larkin and Homer and the author of Mark's Gospel ...“Larkin and Homer and the author of Mark's Gospel are all creative human writers. I wouldn't say any is closer to God than any other, as that term doesn't make sense to me.”<br /><br />Herein, I suppose, is the crux of the disagreement, the willingness or unwillingness to attach meaning to “closeness to God” or to exercise judgment regarding truth or obligation. <br /><br />“The Bible, Qur'an, Book of Mormon, Bhagavad Gita, and so forth, are books on my shelf.”<br /><br />Well, barring the Book of Mormon, they on are my shelf as well, along with a number of others I suspect you are familiar with—the Dhammapada, the Lotus Sutra of the Wonderful Law, the Iron Flute, the Analects, the Book of Mencius, the Tao Te Ching, the Chuang Tzu, the Mishnah, selections from the Avesta and Hadith. They have much in common, but they do not agree entirely. How does one judge between them? Perhaps we needn’t judge—except that there are other books on my shelf: The Prince, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Hitler’s Table Talk. They, too, make claims to truth, but with an increasing distance from those advanced by the works listed above, and I suppose they also have the advantage of modernity. <br /><br />How do we know which to accept and which to reject, which to praise and which to shun? When an Alfred Rosenberg declares that “On the altars there must be nothing but Mein Kampf…and to the left of the altar a sword,” should we then accept an “equalization” all claims, or try to discriminate between what is of God and what is not?<br /><br />Perhaps there is no God, or perhaps God remains silent. I understand those positions. Atheism and nihilism make perfect sense to me. What I do not understand is how one can deny any validity to Christian claims and still claim to have any relationship to Christianity--unless religion really is just a matter of arbitrary “taste,” and one’s religion has as much relationship to truth as one’s choice of a sports team to root for.<br /><br />And after all, even Buddhism, very far from many Western definitions of “religion,” still has a content, a proclamation, even if the result of its founder’s insight rather than divine revelation. State the four noble truths and you can easily articulate their contraries, which all Buddhism denies. <br /><br />Seems to me that, far from being radical or progressive, the insistence on the equality of all claims, or their entire subjectivity, renders them all meaningless, and turns contemplation into solipsism. It is another terminus for our all-pervading individualism.<br /><br />“I wouldn't cheapen them by taking their authorship away from them and giving it to "God."”<br /><br />This strikes me as assuming the Nietzschean premise, that to be fully human we must kill God. Does it take away from human achievement that what is right and good and beautiful is done in and through God? With the possible exception of the Qur’an, none of the above works, certainly not the Bible, claim to be divine dictation. Surely we don’t become less human by participating in the divine?<br /><br />[Good discussion here, by the way. Always pleased to occasionally see these things go stratospheric.]rick allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07612435616018593956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-46827013457413311792009-06-02T11:54:13.416-07:002009-06-02T11:54:13.416-07:00Hi John,
Yeah, I missed your post about the interf...Hi John,<br />Yeah, I missed your post about the interfaith event while I was typing my last comment. Sounds like a cool experience. I hate to keep bringing up Buddhism (OK, not really), but I think Buddhists navigate this literalism issue quite well. Few western Buddhists would claim that Lord Buddha was really conceived from the tusk of a white elephant, born out of his mother's side and, upon being born, pranced around in circles declaring "I alone am the World Honored One." Most western Buddhists don't literally believe in reincarnation, hungry ghosts, Bodhisattva figures like Jizo or Kannon, or, in Zen, that the names of the people in the various lineages who are used to illustrate mind-to-mind transmission all the way back to the historical Buddha were all actually real people, and not fictionalizations to fill in historical gaps. It doesn't matter that these aren't literal truths, they're still truths that enrich people's spiritual lives.jmcleod76https://www.blogger.com/profile/17756115118582961551noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-46218572026470221622009-06-02T11:33:43.381-07:002009-06-02T11:33:43.381-07:00Hey jm,
Our posts passed in cyberland. I think B...Hey jm,<br /><br />Our posts passed in cyberland. I think Borg has been helpful for a lot of people (including me) in making that transition from literalism to an appreciation of the poetic/metaphorical.John Shuckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00798753206614838161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-26994643964554502202009-06-02T11:30:37.852-07:002009-06-02T11:30:37.852-07:00We had an interfaith conference on Saturday. I sp...We had an interfaith conference on Saturday. I spoke about Christianity, particularly Jesus. I realized that I like Jesus, or at least I like my interpretation of Jesus (my ishta devata) my private revelation, my own private Idaho. <br /><br />I also realized that I couldn't insist regarding anything about him or about any "truth" I might discover by using my Jesus symbol. <br /><br />I learned a lot from the conference. It was great to get insights from Buddhists and Hindus and UUs and to think about how to incorporate their insights into my theology. <br /><br />The problem in our culture is that we are saturated with Jesus. He's everywhere. Most of the time he is pretty insistent, exclusive, and kind of crazy. <br /><br />So when you give up the crazy Jesus is it best to give him up altogether or find another Jesus?John Shuckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00798753206614838161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-32368874430365123202009-06-02T11:27:11.639-07:002009-06-02T11:27:11.639-07:00I think there is a position in the middle of relig...I think there is a position in the middle of religious fundamentalism on one hand and modernist secular fundamentalism on the other, and it's one that is meaningful for me, and I suspect for several other posters on this thread, too. That's the "historical-metaphorical" approach recommended by Marcus Borg and other Biblical non-literalists who, despite being open to the modernist historical criticism of the Bible, still manage to live a life of vibrant faith based on its message. It's based on the idea that something doesn't have to be literally true to be spiritually true. <br /><br />For instance, I don't believe Adam and Eve actually existed, were tempted by forbidden fruit, and cast out of the Garden of Eden. That story is not literally true. But, in my own life, I can see how it is metaphorically true that my actions often serve to alienate me from others and, by extension, God. I can see how giving into the temptations of my baser nature severs me from intimacy with God. So, even though that story isn't factual, it's still True. Its message resonates i my own life. <br /><br />I could think of dozens of other examples ... I don't believe a man named Jonah was literally swallowed by a big fish for disobeying God. But, in my own life, I can recognize how, when I harden my heart in anger and hatred toward others, I usually find myself in a very cold, dark, lonely place (much like the belly of a big fish). So, even though, from a factual standpoint, the Book of Jonah is utter nonsense, spiritually speaking, it contains deep Truths that can speak to us today.<br /><br />I think taking it literally actually strips away the material's viability to speak to us in a changing world (which is what I think Rev. Shuck was getting at by bringing up Copernicus). Someone who encounters the Bible this way - as a koan to be wrestled with, like Jacob's angel, rather than as a literal memo from God - needn't be threatened by historical criticism.jmcleod76https://www.blogger.com/profile/17756115118582961551noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-35445482902108525282009-06-02T11:15:30.751-07:002009-06-02T11:15:30.751-07:00One of the reasons I keep turning to Christian chu...One of the reasons I keep turning to Christian churches, instead of (for example the UUs) is that I keep hoping for something more than merely an intellectualized deconstruction of religion. I want something to inspire my sense of awe and mystery, but without checking my brain at the door. The problem is that the via positiva that I find in Christian chruches often carries with it its own sources of dissatisfaction. Caught between a rock and a hard place, as always.Mystical Seekerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-63633438398621119652009-06-02T11:01:44.137-07:002009-06-02T11:01:44.137-07:00Doug! I liked your comment.
I don't think high...Doug! I liked your comment. <br /><br />I don't think higher criticism gives us "meaning" either. It helps us deconstruct however and gives some insight into the texts in their time and place.<br /><br />Sometimes I wonder if, like you have done, the best thing we can do is say, "No, not that and not that either."<br /><br />No to those who claim to have private revelation and use it as authority for their actions.<br /><br />No to those who have reduced life's complexity to facts and reason.<br /><br />It is the via negativa.John Shuckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00798753206614838161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-54322002489724720412009-06-02T10:50:46.532-07:002009-06-02T10:50:46.532-07:00I read most of the comments, or tried to (there su...I read most of the comments, or tried to (there sure are a lot), and I'm not sure I'm being offered any options that I want.<br /><br />On the one hand, I can pretend I have secret knowledge, and that everyone else's secret knowledge is crap, and pretend that is consistent and reassuring rather than setting me up to live in constant fear.<br /><br />On the other hand, I can pretend that I am rational, that human beings are primarily rational, and that a "rational" or "objective" or "analytica" view of the world actually provides meaning...and pretend that this isn't a well-disguised plunge into nihilism.<br /><br />I don't want blind faith, and I don't want blind reason, because neither one is anything near satisfactory, and I can't help but think that both are inventions of the modern age and both miss the point entirely. They are both falsehoods, and both make me queasy. <br /><br />I also don't have much that is constructive to say. I'm working on it. But waiting for God's voice in my ear didn't work out, and picking through writings with the h-c method didn't work either. I wouldn't recommend either one as a path to find meaning.<br /><br />If I have to have religion without revelation, I also want religion without supposed "academic objectivity".Douglas Underhillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02215736448645573566noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-11890210446985319592009-06-02T09:30:17.661-07:002009-06-02T09:30:17.661-07:00Seeker,
Thanks. As you can see I keep waffling b...Seeker,<br /><br />Thanks. As you can see I keep waffling back and forth regarding this term. Probably that comes from the attempt to retain the language yet define it in different ways. <br /><br />I like revelation as creative possibility.John Shuckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00798753206614838161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-83190772911652165822009-06-02T08:47:54.286-07:002009-06-02T08:47:54.286-07:00"None is imbued with special divine authority due ..."None is imbued with special divine authority due to special revelation. Any authority these works have in whole or in part is from people who give them authority."<br /><br />That's why I don't believe that there is any such thing as "special revelation". One of the reasons that I am drawn to process theology, aside from the fact that it integrates with what we know about the evolutionary history of the universe, is that is sees Divine communication as ongoing and involved in everything that happens and everyone who acts int he world. In this view, God speaks to us all, all the time. The idea that God comes out of the sky from time to time to impart some kind of special communication to special people seems to hearken back to a more simplistic and outdated image of God as a powerful being "out there" on his throne somewhere who deigns to intervene in special ways from time to time to give out a message. But I don't see God as acting in that way. Process theology sees God as participating in the creative unfolding of the universe at each moment, which means that God is speaking to all of us, without exception, at each moment. <br /><br />Now obviously some people, with unique qualities, are able to channel what God has to say to us in such a way that they offer creative interpretations of the mysteries of the universe, interpretations that we deem insightful and inspirational. But that represents a creative human interpretation of a revelation that I think is ongoing and provided to all of us at each moment. According to process theology, God offers creative possibilities to us with each passing instant, and the choices we make reflect in some sense the "revelation" of creative possibility.Mystical Seekerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10828225180668865911noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-31442148008600760562009-06-02T07:51:34.952-07:002009-06-02T07:51:34.952-07:00Hi Rick,
You wrote:
"Just as it doesn't jive wit...Hi Rick,<br /><br />You wrote:<br /><br />"Just as it doesn't jive with my own experience to say that, say, Philip Larkin was a better poet that Homer, because Larkin lived in the age of Einstein, so I balk at the implicit assertion that we are somehow closer to the truth of God than St. Francis of Asissi, since he lived in the age of an Aristotelian cosmology. Those seem to me colossal category errors."<br /><br />OK, but of course I am not saying that. Larkin and Homer and the author of Mark's Gospel are all creative human writers. I wouldn't say any is closer to God than any other, as that terms doesn't make sense to me. <br /><br />Perhaps "Ida" who we just found as a 47 million year old fossil was 'closer to God' than any of us. <br /><br />The Trinity under my understanding of the terms would be private revelation, in fact all of the religious doctrines would be private revelations as they are only meaningful to the different sects who affirm them. <br /><br />The Trinity and all the doctrines are creative human expressions and products of their own time and place.<br /><br />The point I am trying to make is that there is more to the world than these dogmas--much more. The Bible, Qur'an, Book of Mormon, Bhagavad Gita, and so forth, are books on my shelf. All are human creative products. None is imbued with special divine authority due to special revelation. Any authority these works have in whole or in part is from people who give them authority.<br /><br />I am not putting them down. I am just equalizing them. It isn't me doing that. I am just saying what we have been doing for the past several hundred years. <br /><br />I think these works are great human achievements. I wouldn't cheapen them by taking their authorship away from them and giving it to "God" even as the authors themselves might have done so. <br /><br />Good parts, bad parts, beautiful parts, ugly parts, all human works. Each day the universe unfolds new mysteries. You could call our discovery of them revelation if you like. <br /><br />You could call reading Shakespeare a revelation, although I think that is more of a poetic way to praise the insights and talents of a real human being. The same for the Bible.John Shuckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00798753206614838161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-57757659395720843532009-06-02T07:50:22.358-07:002009-06-02T07:50:22.358-07:00Hi Rick,
You wrote:
"Just as it doesn't jive wit...Hi Rick,<br /><br />You wrote:<br /><br />"Just as it doesn't jive with my own experience to say that, say, Philip Larkin was a better poet that Homer, because Larkin lived in the age of Einstein, so I balk at the implicit assertion that we are somehow closer to the truth of God than St. Francis of Asissi, since he lived in the age of an Aristotelian cosmology. Those seem to me colossal category errors."<br /><br />OK, but of course I am not saying that. Larkin and Homer and the author of Mark's Gospel are all creative human writers. I wouldn't say any is closer to God than any other, as that terms doesn't make sense to me. <br /><br />Perhaps "Ida" who we just found as a 47 million year old fossil was 'closer to God' than any of us. <br /><br />The Trinity under my understanding of the terms would be private revelation, in fact all of the religious doctrines would be private revelations as they are only meaningful to the different sects who affirm them. <br /><br />The Trinity and all the doctrines are creative human expressions and products of their own time and place.<br /><br />The point I am trying to make is that there is more to the world than these dogmas--much more. The Bible, Qur'an, Book of Mormon, Bhagavad Gita, and so forth, are books on my shelf. All are human creative products. None is imbued with special divine authority due to special revelation. Any authority these works have in whole or in part is from people who give them authority.<br /><br />I am not putting them down. I am just equalizing them. It isn't me doing that. I am just saying what we have been doing for the past several hundred years. <br /><br />I think these works are great human achievements. I wouldn't cheapen them by taking their authorship away from them and giving it to "God" even as the authors themselves might have done so. <br /><br />Good parts, bad parts, beautiful parts, ugly parts, all human works. Each day the universe unfolds new mysteries. You could call our discovery of them revelation if you like. <br /><br />You could call reading Shakespeare a revelation, although I think that is more of a poetic way to praise the insights and talents of a real human being. The same for the Bible.John Shuckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00798753206614838161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-62195151724641141612009-06-02T04:42:52.152-07:002009-06-02T04:42:52.152-07:00"Maybe the distinction should be between "public" ..."Maybe the distinction should be between "public" and "private" revelation."<br /><br />My understanding is that that distinction has always referred to the difference between revelation proposed for all and revelation to an individual which may or may not be accepted by others. For example, the doctrine of the Trinity is a subject of public revelation, a part of the doctrine of the faith, affirmed in the creeds and the public worship of Christians. By contrast, an example of private revelation would be, say, the "shewings" of God to Blessed Julian of Norwich. We need not accept her assertions that God revealed certain things to her, but we may, because they are consistent with the public revelvation which constitutes the substantive content of the faith.<br /><br />What you and Dowd call "public revelation" is, I think, what has long been recognized as "natural theology," the sense that "The heavens declare the glory of God." This is consistent with the doctrinal assertion that the imago Dei is in every man and woman, that we are made by God and for God and each other. This is indeed manifest in the striving that we see in all cultures and at all times for the transcendental.<br /><br />But there are limitations as well. Science gives us knowledge and power, but it cannot tell us which course of action to take. And I do not see how the shape of the earth or the shape of space itself under the equations of general relativity modify the precept to love one's neighbor as oneself or the dogma that God condescended to empty himself and take the form of a slave to reconcile us. <br /><br />Just as it doesn't jive with my own experience to say that, say, Philip Larkin was a better poet that Homer, because Larkin lived in the age of Einstein, so I balk at the implicit assertion that we are somehow closer to the truth of God than St. Francis of Asissi, since he lived in the age of an Aristotelian cosmology. Those seem to me colossal category errors.rick allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07612435616018593956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-30600359570562732142009-06-01T23:29:44.340-07:002009-06-01T23:29:44.340-07:00"But if it exists, the point is to communicate wit..."But if it exists, the point is to communicate with us, which seems to make some amount of sense."<br /><br />If that is true, then God is one lousy communicator.Jodiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15447125159108080797noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-51146232961159761702009-06-01T19:20:05.106-07:002009-06-01T19:20:05.106-07:00Hey Rick, thanks for the push. Maybe the distinct...Hey Rick, thanks for the push. Maybe the distinction should be between "public" and "private" revelation. <br /><br />Public revelation is a way of using God or Mystery language to describe what we are learning about the Universe.<br /><br />Private revelation is what specific religions claim in sacred texts. <A HREF="http://thankgodforevolution.com/node/1703" REL="nofollow">Michael Dowd</A> makes that distinction. <br /><br /><I>One of the major planks of Dowd's thesis is that God's revelation comes through Nature and its unfolding evolution as discovered by modern science, which he sees as a vehicle of God's revelation. Here we may recall that for St.Thomas Aquinas the first revelation of God is found in the book of Nature, and later in the book of the Bible. Now we know it is an on-going process, not a static one; and our understanding of it is also open to change and revision. Science is quintessentially falsifiable and revisable. Dowd calls this revelation through Nature and science, public revelation, namely a revelation open to all irrespective of religious or ideological persuasions. In his view, revelations enshrined in some religious traditions - the Scriptures-are private revelations As such they are (1) meaningful only to the respective believers and (2) as Scriptures, namely as the written Word, not that amenable to change. These scriptural traditions, pre-dating a Copernican understanding of the cosmos, fall under the category of what he calls "flat-earth faiths". "A distinction must be made at this point between flat-earth faith and evolutionary faith....What I mean by flat-earth faith is not people believing the world is flat. Rather it refers to any perspective in which the metaphors and theology still in use came into being at a time when peoples really did believe the world was flat - that is when there was no reliable way for humans to comprehend the world around them by means of science-based public revelation. Religious traditions that are scripturally based, and whose texts have not changed substantially since the time of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Hubble, Crick, Dawkins, and Hawking become, necessarily, flat-earth faiths when interpreted literally". Dowd goes onto say, very consistently, that the same applies to eastern religions and their scriptures - Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism - as well; they came into being in a "flat-earth epoch", and if they are interpreted literally today, they are flat-earth faiths.</I>John Shuckhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00798753206614838161noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-11822434859715881452009-06-01T18:52:52.059-07:002009-06-01T18:52:52.059-07:00"I really don't understand the point of r..."I really don't understand the point of revelation. In fact I don't see any good in it. I do see its harm."<br /><br />John, I don't see what's not to understand.<br /><br />Revelation means the communication of God to humanity. That's all that it means, really.<br /><br />So, if there's no God, yeah, no revelation.<br /><br />Or if God keeps his metaphorical mouth shut, again no revelation.<br /><br />But if it exists, the point is to communicate with us, which seems to make some amount of sense.<br /><br />Again, that alone doesn't make the Bible or the Church or Nature God's revelation. But if we are to think that God is telling us something, somehow, I don't see how we do without the concept of revelation.<br /><br />What you're saying strikes me as kind of like saying you don't understand the point in using words when writing or performing poetry. You can do mime all day, and can be pretty good at it, but it ain't poetry.rick allenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07612435616018593956noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30648257.post-19485665092494160242009-05-30T22:26:18.661-07:002009-05-30T22:26:18.661-07:00Anyways, sorry for the rambling comments but I jus...Anyways, sorry for the rambling comments but I just thought I'd throw that into the conversation. You just can't argue with people who actually believe the bible is Jesus/God. Here's some more food for thought---Luther paved the way for biblical criticism and Neo-Orthodoxy: <A HREF="http://theopoet4camp.blogspot.com/2009/05/luther-biblicaltextual-critic.html" REL="nofollow">TheoPoetic Musings: Luther, The Biblical/Textual Critic</A> and <A HREF="http://theopoet4camp.blogspot.com/2008/09/luther-first-neo-orthodox.html" REL="nofollow">TheoPoetic Musings: Luther, The First Neo-Orthodox?</A>.TheoPoethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17169016780168243136noreply@blogger.com